Busy Bunnies - new animated storybook for kids (iOS only)

General (non-technical) New Apps / Works in Progress
#1

To paraphrase from the App Store description:

“Busy Bunnies is a fun animated story for young children about two little bunnies who have a very busy day. They get up to various activities, but eventually come home for dinner and a bath. After their day is done, you can tuck them into bed - don’t forget to turn off the light !”

App Store link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/busy-bunnies/id432467432

We’ve tested the app on some little tackers and my 2 year old niece seemed to like it as well as my 6 year old daughter - so we’ll say it’s good for younger kids The story is pretty simple - bunnies doing “stuff” - but we’ve tried to keep it interesting and engaging by including animations and limited interactivity on every page.

Screenshots are attached to this post. We’ve posted a Youtube vid also : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIIN02QaHo

I still have a stack of promo codes available - let know if you can help us out with a review. [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 309219[/import]

#2

All these storybooks for kids are a great use of Corona. [import]uid: 12108 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 33998[/import]

#3

I concur - Corona has all the tools necessary for building these sort of apps. We hope to produce a few more kids books for iPad using the same tools. [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34045[/import]

#4

Nice job!

I’m just curious, does this book use the “SoundTextSync” code designed and made “Director capable” by DavidBFox, cmontesino, and others? Or did you design one yourself? It appears to be that version when I view your YouTube vid.

Again, very cool, keep up the good work. :slight_smile:

Brent

P.S. - I would also love a promo code, but I won’t receive my iPad2 until around May 5th. Will you have any codes remaining then? (I’m not sure how long they stay “valid” after being issued). [import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34049[/import]

#5

waiting on an iPad2 also here. Rare as hens teeth ! Shoot me a message once you get yours - I’ll keep a promo code handy for you.

and yes, we did use SoundTextSync for David Fox - very useful bit of code perfectly suited to this kind of app.

cheers,
Darcy [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34051[/import]

#6

and a minor success to report - we just made it to New and Noteworthy in the US App Store (for Books) :slight_smile: [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34052[/import]

#7

We are New and Noteworthy at the moment in the US in the Books category. In order to capitalize on this, we are having a 72 hour free promotion - the goal being to hopefully get a few more downloads in order to get some user reviews. We might lose a few sales this way, but in the longer term I think it might help us in the long run to get more user reviews - hopefully they will all be 5 stars … hehe :slight_smile:

Enjoy! - here’s the link again if you need it : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/busy-bunnies/id432467432?mt=8

Darcy [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34275[/import]

#8

Hi Darcy,

Thanks for providing the 72-hour promotion for Busy Bunnies! I downloaded a copy to test and review.

Unfortunately, the app is crashing on my device… no developer wants to hear that, I’m sure, but maybe you can determine the reason and fix it. The title screen loads up just fine, and I can proceed to page 1. All of the animations, sounds, voice, etc. are functional. BUT, when I click to advance to page 2, the app hangs for a few seconds and crashes every time. So perhaps it’s some element contained on page 2 that’s causing the crash, and not something “internal” to the app?

The test device in this case was an iPod Touch 3rd-gen… yes, an admittedly older iOS device, but one that’s still relevant for testing purposes. I don’t think alot of your customers would be viewing Busy Bunnies on such a device, but maybe you can check out page 2 and test it on other devices as well.

Anyway, keep up the good work! I hope this error is more isolated on my device and not across several platforms.

Brent Sorrentino
[import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34394[/import]

#9

Brent,

Thanks for feedback. We weren’t able to test on your device, only later iPods and iPads. We also had one other user review stating the same problem, so this is something I will need to get on to.

My suspicion as to the cause of the crash on page 2 is a rather large sprite. If the 3rd gen devices have less texture memory then I think it might be possible for the app to crash like that. [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34450[/import]

#10

Ok, the review is done (5*). Good luck and congrats! [import]uid: 10426 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34464[/import]

#11

The 3 day free promo has definitely been worthwhile so far in terms of raising the profile of our app. I’m fairly sure that our rise in the rankings (currently in the top 10 New and Noteworthy in the Books category in the USA, Canada and France) is a result of the promo. We are also getting a lot of user reviews (currently at 4.5 stars) in the app store and a few external site reviews also are trickling in, e.g.

http://appsforipads.net/educational-apps/childrens-apps/books/busy-bunnies-bounce-childs

http://techinspecialed.com/2011/04/27/busy-bunnies-nice-little-ebook-to-teach-labels-verbs-and-sight-words-in-context/

Not getting paid for any of this obviously while it’s a free app, but my hope is that we can ride the momentum a bit once it switches back to a paid app this weekend. We’ll see about that I suppose.

Anyway, this is all part of my own growing realisation that once you develop and publish an app you’ve still got work a lot of work to do to get people to notice it !! [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 34536[/import]

#12

Hi again Darcy,

I’m just curious, is the “Busy Bunnies” app 100% universal for both iPhone and iPad? I finally got my iPad2 yesterday and I installed the book which I had downloaded for iPhone using the 72-hour promotion. It installs properly to the iPad2, but unfortunately it crashes immediately upon launch (doesn’t even reach the title screen). According to my local iTunes software, Busy Bunnies is “universal”… it is grouped under the header “iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad Apps”. So, I assume it can be installed on both devices… hence Corona’s universal builds feature… but as I mentioned, it crashes on iPad2.

This is using the absolute latest iPad software, 4.3.3.

Hopefully this is a fluke and not a widespread issue. :slight_smile:

Thanks,
Brent Sorrentino
[import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 35237[/import]

#13

Brent,

Thanks for the bug report. We’ve had some reports of crashing in iPad2 but we have tested it on a brand new iPad2 with no crashes. I have no idea why it’s working on some units and not others. We are releasing a update next week which addresses an issue with older devices with less texture memory (like 2nd gen iPods). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that will clear the sporadic iPad2 issues also, but frankly I’m not too hopeful - it’s hard to correct a problem that you can’t reproduce locally.

I will try to borrow my friend’s iPad2 for some more testing.

In other news, we had 8000 downloads in 3 days, but sales slowed dramatically once it went back to commercial ($1.99). Bit depressing to go from 4000 downloads one day to 14 the next, then 6, then 5. But that’s the nature of the app store I guess. [import]uid: 14398 topic_id: 9219 reply_id: 35298[/import]